The forecast all week was for rain but it never happened. It wasn’t wet, well except for the far southern area near the boundary fence, where some Fun Hunt participants found the ruts and run off. Thanks to the kindly rescue by our good neighbor, Mr Cobalez, both the above member and good guy, Keith Lindsay who also got stuck trying to pull him out, were taken to dry land.

We did have wind, 20MPH pretty steady with 30+MPH gusts. How a bird dog can smell a quail in a 30+mph wind is beyond me, heck I couldn’t even see for all tears that wind was producing. But find them they did, oh it wasn’t easy, they had to really work at it and they all did. I didn’t see a single dog give up and turn to the truck.

The early brace was a good one with the wind just picking up after sun rise. The bracemates in that first brace cleaned the field for second, Derk Doak & Bella, and third place, Mick Gill & Willy, separated by only a minute to that first bird.

There are a lot of really good partnerships in our club, the above pair are a good example. James Parnell & LIvi, worked that field hard and scratched out three birds, for 4th place, when the braces around them where struggling.

But later in the day Rusean’s statement of” That’s why I call him Champ” seemed prophetic, as the team racked up 5 fulls plus a back for the winning score of 230.

Wingshooting is always a challenge, that’s why we like it, but in a 30 mph wind those birds get gone in a hurry. Look closely and you will see a bird in the above photo, but he is leaving the area quickly believe you me. Shooters struggled all day with misses that will be grumbled about all week. Birds taking a hard right when turning down wind, or spiraling straight up trying to screw the shooter into the ground while his hat is being blown off.

When the wind is blowing hard those birds don’t want to fly, and they seem to hug the ground or try and run off in the blowing grass. That is where good dogs are just that, good dogs, and stay staunch. It’s also why our rules require the handler to flush the bird, not the dog. Because good dogs, yup, stay staunch.

See the guy in the back ground of the above picture? Well he is within range to get peppered by Larry’s shot at the bird he is about to kick up at 19 seconds into his brace, and you know that bird is going to fly right at the guy. Thanks to the excellent sight plane awareness and safe gun handling of all our members, we again had a incident free trial, well that is if you don’t call Tommy Lee’s going knee deep into a coyote hole an incident. He didn’t and walked it off following his dog after the next bird.

Thank you to everyone, new members and old, who pitched in to help. Larry Naas and his uber Polaris rides to the fun hunt field, Carl Brown and Bob Dorn our judges, and everyone who pitched in on the puppy field. Doug Cross who planted birds on a schedule that would be the envy of the airlines, and Keith Franklin for fetching lunch as well as his little Boykin buddy fetches birds. To Purina for the Pro Plan gift certificates, which don’t take as good a picture, but sure struck a cord with the ability to have it delivered ” when” they wanted. And of course as always the Oler family for allowing us to use this beautiful little piece of prairie.

Next week is the Tri-State Gun Dog Championship up in Illinois. Wish the guys well in our efforts to retain the crown for another year. Speaking of wishing well, reach out to Phil Ezell, our provider of great flying quail, as he is going to have back surgery on Monday. A bunch of voice mails will make rehab a lot easier I’m sure.

Last trial of the spring of 2022 is 3-19-22 so get your registration in early, then you can plan spring yard work around it.